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Fifty-Four Percent?

Overheard somewhere on the airwaves during the last couple of days, I’m taking it on faith that that is the correct percentage of American Catholic voters that marked their ballots for Mr. Obama last November.Forgetting abortion for a moment, the fact that the candidate’s knowable record on new life outside the womb doesn’t warrant a greater than seventy percent result in the opposite direction by this voting “block” prevents me from even attempting serious comment on the current Notre Dame Commencement address flap.

Instead, I wish to just reprint in its entirety my pre-election screed on the subject (1):

Community Organizer Refuted

The Darkest Recesses of One Nominee’s Heart That Should Appall Voters of Both Parties

Earlier this year, I found myself standing in the delivery room a full three weeks before we expected to be there.There had been no real emergency but serious concerns during a routine weekly check-up resulted in a rather direct trip to the hospital for induced labor.For most of the rest of that day, we wavered back and forth between anxious excitement and cautious apprehension.

Shortly after my son’s arrival, I stood alone near the middle of the room with my back slightly turned to my exhausted wife as her doctor was attending to her.My immediate focus was on the new living soul under the heat lamp who just couldn’t seem to keep breathing on his own.There was no panic in the room but there was the unmistakable aura that something serious was going on.

After every exhale, there was what seemed to be a very long, silent pause while everyone waited to see the signs of another breath.Every time there was none.

The medical staff remained calm and after each breathless pause they would rub and jostle him and coax him to summon the strength to take that next breath.They then worked feverishly for several seconds to help clear his lung and then repeated the cycle.After several minutes, his breathing improved and the danger passed.After a few days in NICU he emerged to be a happy, healthy baby brother now on the verge of crawling.

This was a very powerful experience at the time but was well on its way to fading into the distance behind months and months of sleep deprivation, diaper changes, and much happier memories. That is until I heard about Mr. Obama, in his former life as a state legislator, not being able to find a reason to support something called the Born Alive Infants Protection Act.

This issue came to my attention through a first hand account of a nurse who had experienced the very situation that had inspired the legislation (sorry, no link).Since then, every mention of the subject flashes my mind back to those few uneasy minutes back in the delivery room.But now I imagine the scene as a weak, beaten, fragile newborn spirit clinging desperately…hopelessly…to its already shattered life.No doctor. No expert medical staff.No loving mother or father.Hell, probably not even the caring warmth of an incubator lamp.Just the cold cruel world of a somewhat sterile tabletop…maybe even shoved away in a closet…while life slowly drains away.

(Just ponder for a few moments exactly how that whole deal fits into the utopian liberal world of choice and universal health care.The “life begins at birth” crowd will surely have its hands full now that the living baby has constitutional rights to both.However, it’s not hard to imaging a governmental bureaucracy’s dream scenario where the intended abortion will qualify as a pre-existing condition and…well, you get the idea.)

Although the passage of a few seconds or minutes makes any attempted distinction meaningless, this is specifically NOT ABOUT ABORTION.This is about LIFE.This is about a man…a father…who can somehow reconcile such a vote during his work day against even attempting to save such a baby with his Christian faith and his comfortable home life that evening with his lovely daughters laughing, playing, hugging, crying…and LIVING.

Whether this was an act based on pure conviction or nothing but a cold, calculated political maneuver, I can only conclude that it points to some very dark places in his heart.

So spare me the overproduced infomercial featuring the financially stressed yet over manicured single mom from a battleground state to show me how much you care about real people.Don’t tell me that you want the keys to the castle to enact some amazing plan…one that you failed to introduce in any form during your current tenure in the U.S. Senate…that will magically help struggling families buy more milk when you couldn’t care enough to vote in the affirmative on a bill to protect helpless, living children…a vote that should have been as reflexive as a New York City firefighter running into a burning building.

I’m not naïve enough to think that the United States will not have pro-choice/pro-abortion Presidents in the future but this man is simply too extreme for mainstream American voters to accept…if only issues like this had been given proper exposure during the campaign.While every recent Presidential election seemed to have focused too much on abortion politics to the detriment of much more important issues, this campaign season seems to have barely touched the issue leaving Mr. Obama’s wicked policy expansion largely hidden from his sycophantic herd.

I cannot tell you how disgusted I am by any American that would vote for this man while having full knowledge of this issue.Unfortunately, whether he is successful or not on Tuesday, there is a not-so-insignificant segment of half the American electorate that falls into that category.(Contemplate those numbers as you are mingling with fellow Americans at you local market or taking a mental accounting of those around you with fading “CHANGE” bumper stickers over the next four years.)

As for me, I am embarrassed for the people of Illinois for electing this man to high office.I am embarrassed for the Democrat party for nominating him for the highest office and for the American press for providing the cover needed to secure that position.And finally, I’m truly depressed with the irresponsible direction it seems the people of this country are choosing to head.